Nov 05, 2012

Government Sues Triple Canopy for Iraq Contract Fraud

A fraud lawsuit alleges none of the security guards provided by Triple Canopy to guard a U.S. airbase in Iraq met the Army's minimum target shooting requirements.

By NEIL GORDON

The Department of Justice announced the filing of a lawsuit against private security firm Triple Canopy for allegedly defrauding the government on an Iraq security contract.

In June 2009, the Joint Contracting Command in Iraq/Afghanistan (JCC-I/A) awarded Triple Canopy a one-year, $9.5 million contract to provide security at Al Asad Airbase, the second largest U.S. airbase in Iraq. According to the government’s complaint, Triple Canopy billed the government for hundreds of Ugandan security guards who did not meet firearms proficiency requirements.

“[Triple Canopy] went further than simply billing the Government for unqualified personnel,” the complaint alleges. “It falsified the documents in its files to show that the unqualified guards each qualified as a ‘Marksman’ on a U.S. Army qualification course.” According to the complaint, the government paid Triple Canopy a total of $10.4 million on the contract between September 2009 and July 2010 in reliance on falsified billing documents.

The government’s False Claims Act lawsuit, which also seeks damages on several common law claims, is based on a whistleblower complaint filed in March 2011 by former Triple Canopy employee Omar Badr, who claims he witnessed the alleged fraud at Al Asad and reported it to several company officials in May 2010. Ironically, one month later, Triple Canopy CEO Ignacio “Iggy” Balderas testified before the Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan (CWC), where he boasted about his company’s “legal, moral and ethical manner” and about providing its personnel “the right training and equipment.” He even specifically complained about the problem of contractors being allowed to work in Iraq despite lacking the required certification.

“We have seen foreign firms blatantly violate the training requirements under their contract,” Balderas testified.

In June 2011, the CWC sent Balderas a letter thanking him for his cooperation, praising his “candid answers” and “expansive opinion on how to improve contingency contracting.”

Since its founding in 2003, Triple Canopy has undergone a meteoric rise in the private security industry. It has won nearly $2 billion in government business, most of which has been with the State Department and Department of Defense for security services in Iraq.

The company’s rapid growth has not been without controversy. In 2006, two former Triple Canopy employees sued the company claiming they had been wrongfully terminated for reporting that they saw a co-worker deliberately shoot Iraqi civilians. Triple Canopy did not deny that the shootings occurred, but it disputed the circumstances that provoked the shootings and whether any civilians were hurt. The lawsuit was eventually settled out of court for an undisclosed amount.

The CWC’s August 2011 final report to Congress pointed out that a Ugandan Triple Canopy security guard posted at Forward Operating Base Delta in Iraq committed suicide, and that guards at the base “were often ill-equipped and without basic cold-weather gear such as gloves.”

Day & Johns, the law firm representing whistleblower Omar Badr, issued this press release announcing the federal government's intervention in the case.

Neil Gordon is an investigator with the Project On Government Oversight. Image by Flickr user gelle.dk.

Comments

There are men in federal prison for illegally cutting timber of federal lands, having knowledge of illegal activity and not notifying authorities and crimes much less than defrauding the government of millions. Kudos for the lawsuit, but it's time to rethink what makes something a serious crime.

The outsourcing of inherently government functions costs us more than any accountant will ever find on the books. The worst part about hiring these "contractors" is the fact that our government does not hire them individually. They really work for one of a hand full of companies whose executives get rich on the blood of these men. And all the while that they are getting rich, they are lobbying very effectively for the war to continue so their wealth can increase. Plus, their efforts to make the war last longer go even farther. They have people in place that purposely antagonize our enemies so that the wars last longer. This is not the stupidity of Rome. This is very much our own brand of stupidity.

Why do they falsely use the word contractor when all these people are is mercenaries? Can the government ever be trusted control these people again or will we continue to see this kind of corruption that allowed the barbarians to destroy Rome.

Vance,
Your story is a good example of the incompetence and negligence of the department in question, but could happen in literally any element of the USG. There is no penalty for failure, unless the planets are peculiarly aligned. In gross lack-of-oversight-and-not-giving -a-rat's-a** circles, this is known as an "I-and-N caper," for, er, incompetence and negligence. Occurring but the thousands, no one gets hurt except the ultimate users of the services being bought, e.g., the people guarded. The funders, overseers, providers--nah. The State Department is known for such performance in contracting, and, sadly, in a lot of mission/diplomatic matters. These matters will continue to occur in great numbers until prosecutors are given a goosed-up priority to go after the contractors and the government overseers in criminal prosecutions.

I was in Iraq in the US Embassy in 2005 when the State Dept. shut down the British security firm furnishing Ghurka guards hired by DoD and hired Triple Canopy after State took over responsibility for Iraq (from the Coalition Provisional Authority). They brought in mostly latins who had no clue. They failed to provide medical services or a required cafeteria for the new guards and the Embassy had to scramble to provide both. Thus the Triple Canopy guards overwhelmed the cafeteria used by Embassy and IRMO staff while other contractor staff had been banned months earlier. Guards did not even have the required physicals, so the Embassy medical staff had to provide them. State Dept. was only focused on lower cost, and they got what they paid for. The guards were not anywhere as disciplined as the Ghurkas, talked to each other while guarding entrances and basically had no credibility. I never understood why someone in the State Dept. wasn't fired for hiring them. My blog on Corruption in Iraq ran from 2006 until 2011 - http://webworks.typepad.com/corruption_in_iraq/